We All Die (Laughing) was an unknown band to me until I saw them listed in the list of Promo CD's. I was interested by the tag of "Avante Garde" and had to give it a listen. What came from it, was an incredible surprise, and one of the better progressive style albums I've heard in some time. I was able to talk to both members of the band and get some insight to the album, and where it all came from.

Can you tell me about the history of the band, and how you formed?

Déhà : I met Arno through some social website, since he wanted to contact my band Maladie. As a big fan of Carnival in Coal, we started to discuss about everything, I ended up in sending some of my musics, including the first demo of what became Thoughtscanning, and he loved it. So we met at some point and we decided that this is not a side project but a band

I have heard the name of the band came from a song by the band The Angelic Process. Is this correct, and do you consider them an influence?

Déhà : Not really a musical influence in a direct way to our music but more mentally. Fact is, the name itself "We all die laughing" was just the perfect way of saying the "mood" of our band. Plus, I am myself a lover of that unfortunately dead band.

Are there other bands, metal or non metal you take influence from?

Déhà : My influences, generally, goes from everything that I can hear. For example my influences these days are Igorrr, Sargeist & Screaming Jay Hawkins. When I am writing music, I have no influence. I don't want to copy anything. Funny thing since people are mainly saying Shining or Edge of Sanity, for me it's way different.

What can you tell me about the concept and overall meaning of the album?

Déhà : The concept is about us, Arno & I, very personal so. We managed to put our feelings in music in a "self-analysis" condition, and it was pretty hard to accept and assume different things in it. But Arno will be more specific on this.

Arno : That album has been a tough one to write. We managed to be so sincere and to put so much of our inner secrets into it that it soon became a pain in the ass to record such personal shit. That’s maybe the reason why we laughed so much and often during the recording : the matter was so heavy and overwhelming that we’ve been trying to keep a safety net not to go mad. That may sound very cliché, but I swear I’ve never been that far in delivering my inner thoughts and feelings.

Do you find the process of writing a single 30 plus minute song difficult, or did the song come together pretty naturally?

Déhà : As the composer of the song, It was hard for this one but it came naturally indeed. It came like a story that had to be a "circle" and I am really happy about its outcome.

Arno : “Thoughtscan” is not a 30 minutes song for the sake of it. I mean, it could have lasted 15 minutes or one hour, the only goal was to let our inner demons loose. We also worked a lot to be sure the track was never boring or redundant.

Had you always intended for the album to be one single song?

Déhà : Of course.

The various style changes musically and vocally in the album create such an incredible mood. Do you feel this was important to the concept and story of the album?

Déhà : Yes. But we didn't do them in order to... fill it or else. Everything came naturally. We weren't like "Hey dude, let's make a screaming hiphop suicidal part so we can be named avantgarde!". The concept was us, we felt and still feel it, we didn't compromise anything : it just came out.

Arno : The album, as you may have noticed, is about depression. And depression comes along with various mixed emotions : pain, sadness, guilt, anger, relief, fear… The musical genres involved are there to symbolize these mixed feelings. It would have been a nonsense to go 100% black or death metal, because that’s not a real image of life. Both of us are huge Anaal Nathrakh fans, but when I’m brunching with my wife on a sunny spring day, I prefer to listen to Frank Sinatra.

What was the decision behind doing a cover of the Amy Winehouse song, Back To Black?

Arno : Nico, our label manager, had this cover idea for us. I think we wouldn’t have thought about it by ourselves, but when Déhà demoed a proper version of it and I started to sing, we quickly understood it was a great idea. Moreover, I think Amy Winehouse is going pretty well with the concept behind WAD(L). So much pain, so much trouble… It just made sense.

Is there a certain section of the album you identify with most, either lyrically, vocally or musically?

Déhà : For me, starting from Alexandra's solo (before Arno's lines "I've been living in a world of circles"), everything is killing me.

Arno : The verse : “We are dying as we were born : naked, blank, meaningless” is very meaningful to me. But all in all I can pretty much identify with the whole track. Sounds like the soundtrack of some years in my life.

The song/Album Is available on YouTube to listen to in full on the record label's YouTube page. How do you feel about streaming music and other digital methods of getting music as opposed to physical CD's and vinyl?

Déhà : We live in a world where people need to hear things before buying. Gotta live with it, don't we? I still, naïvely speaking, believe that even if people download our song somewhere, they might be able to come to us at some point, buying stuff. I hope.

Arno : I feel sad for the people who will just download it that they can’t see the incredible artwork of Maxime Taccardi. And I have to say that it’s important for artists that fans keep on buying music (digital or physical). Of course we don’t make a living out of WAD(L), but I’m also thinking about Kaotoxin (our label) who’s been doing an incredible work on the album and the ones from its other bands. This kind of passionate underground label must stay in life.

Are there any current bands in the metal scene you think the people should know about aside from your own?

What does the future hold of the band? Can we expect more music? Or any possible plans for live shows?

Déhà : We will be working on a new album soon, this isn't going to stop now. For lives, we'd love to but it's going to take time. So let's just wait a moment. Logistically speaking, it's a bit hard since I am living in Bulgaria now. But ain't gonna be 2500km forbidding me to make music with Arno.

I would like to thank both Deha and Arno for their time answering these questions.